Digital impacts everything

The transition of all businesses to digital is inevitable. Its efficiencies, insights and transformative capabilities can’t be ignored. Yet we are currently living in a unique period of history where a shift to digital hasn’t been fully realised. Looking back, we may view this lack of digital capability the same way we would view a business without electricity.

Like any evolution to something greater, the key factor preventing many businesses from experiencing the benefits of digital is not its technology, but its core beliefs. The key idea clipping the wings of many businesses, is that digital is confined to the realm of marketing, or agencies ‘in-the-know.’ It has been viewed as flashy, expensive and a nice-to-have.

However, current developments have brought digital down to earth. Digital marketing is now able to take real time knowledge from any business and implement it for real results. Marketers and CEOs no longer need to feel blindsided by jargon and lingo. By harnessing a few key concepts, they can use digital to measure and track their customers, as well as go deeper into what these results mean. This is translated into tangible, high-impact solutions that can be applied across the business.

Digital has been democratised. It is now relevant to marketers, agencies, publishers and individuals alike. No particular group has monopoly, as it is no longer a cordoned-off discipline. It is a language we all need to speak. As the IAB SA, we have witnessed this in an organic evolution in digital spend. Digital spend will continue to increase as a percentage of total ad spend in business, not because they are following a trend, but because digital provides the greatest return on investment.

As digital marketing spend increases, so should digital’s real estate in business. We can’t continue to run businesses in which digital is confined to the marketing department. Digital strategy needs to have buy-in and input from CEO-level, and infiltrate all areas of the business, inside and out. Corporate culture needs to transform, otherwise the revolutionary change digital promises will be muted.

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On 3 March, the IAB SA will be hosting its second Digital Summit, where it will compress the most compelling and current discussion on digital into a packed one-day programme.